


Things Best Served Cold

by DarkShadeless



Series: Magnolia Drive [5]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Crimes against gardening, Gen, I can't XD, Nancy really shouldn't pick fights she can't win, OR CAN SHE?, XD, dundundun, if not quite nature, small town drama, sneaky sneaky pokemon, this series is one of the best things I've ever written I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 08:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Love thy neighbor. You won’t get rid of them so easily.





	Things Best Served Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Hobbiton levels of drama continue! Mimi is the saltiest pokemon alive. XD

Now, nobody was going to go around pointing fingers or anything but the whole matter with Magnolia drive _was _a little suspicious, all told. Especially after what happened when Nancy from Rosebud way, vocal member of the Neighborhood Association, stopped Annie from Magnolia on her way to the town market and read her the riot act about how the gardener she had contracted to fix up the drive had run off on her just minutes before because he had, apparently, gotten attacked by wild pokemon while he was trying to work.

Annie from Magnolia drive, for her part vocal dissident in the matter of the re-planting of her street, was understandably upset by that unjustified and, quite frankly, rather rude public call over the coals. In fact she is said to have made a few _very _tart remarks about Nancy’s manners, style of dress and taste in garden culture, then and there.

Or so rumor has it, anyhow. Nobody saw anything concrete, mind, and if they did they wouldn’t admit to hanging out their windows from the first floor to listen in, but it does throw what happened next into an… interesting light.

* * *

Annie clutches her basket to herself, shaking with rage. “How… how dare you, you… you hag!” And in front of Mimi! Her poor baby had hidden itself behind her at the first sharp words. It’s _shivering_.

She couldn’t have cared less about how Nancy’s stupid mouth falls open with a gasp of outrage. In fact, she barely notices. “How dare you talk to people like that! How dare you talk to _me_ like that! I’m not going to take this from a… a… a colorblind _mop _with no appreciation for nature!”

Oh boy. The entire street is breathless with shock (not that they are listening).

Little sweet Annie… who knew.

Then again, no one can claim Nancy shouldn't have expected that reaction. You can only antagonize even the sweetest person for so long, after all, and these two have been at odds since Annie moved in, all on her lonesome with only a Pikachu for company out in that cottage on the hill.

It didn’t help that she won over the town with her sewing skills, homemade delicacies and foraged vegetables in no time at all. Had her own stall in the farmer's market before you could blink, she did, their Annie. Always has an ear for anyone who has trouble, too, the darling girl.

Nancy, budding sweetheart of Laona since before she could walk, didn’t much like having her for (perceived) competition, wicked tongues might claim. Especially with her… _new age views, _on some things. Likes her world in neat little squares, that one and makes no secret of it.

Oh yes, one might say she had this coming, indeed.

Fuming, Annie whirls around and starts in the direction of the market place. Behind her, Nancy finally gathers her wits in the wake of that unprecedented piece of push-back. “Why you-! We’re not done!”

Annie pauses just long enough to throw her a venomous look. “Yes, we are. Come along, Mimi.”

(Mimi comes. But if either of the ladies were paying attention they might notice that it looks back at Nancy for a long time. A _long_ time.)

Nancy’s garden is _ransacked_ that night. There’s not a plant left unscathed. Flowerbeds are torn to shreds, the lawn is turned over, whole _bushes _are uprooted. It’s as if an entire flock of Murkrow descends upon her yard at nightfall and doesn’t leave until it is in _ruins._

Madam Ophelia’s Roselia, who must have witnessed the whole thing, refuse to come out from under her porch for days, never mind their generally hardy disposition.

(As seasoned generals and veterans of the garden front they recognize a superior show of force when they see one. Madam Ophelia might or might not find herself encouraged to offer a tribute of rose jelly to Annie's person upon her crossing their threshold in Rosebud way the next week. One can never have too many allies in case of rainy days or sudden, inexplicable influxes of japanese beetles two days before a competition.

They know what you did, Robert Tracy. They _know_ and their memories are _long_.)

As far as the Disaster of Rosebud Way is concerned, Roselia don’t talk and no one else saw anything. No, the whole street was so fast asleep they didn’t even dream.

* * *

“It’s an outrage!” Nancy, not quite as put together as usual and with her pearls hanging askew, gestures wildly. Mayor Gustav narrowly manages to avoid making a closer acquaintance with her nails than he cares to.

“Really, Nancy-“

“It was her! She did it!” No need to ask who she means. The gossip is all over town. “I demand you _do something_ about that menace to society!”

Gustav tugs his handkerchief from his jacket pocket nervously and dabs at the sweat on his brow. “Look, don’t you think this is a little rash? Why don’t you calm down and-“

“I am _calm_!” She is, in a word, not, in case anyone may have had a doubt about that.

Nancy’s garden was her pride and joy. She had won the ribbon for ‘Best Display and Composition’ in the regionals three years in a row and was gunning for a fourth, just next month.

That… is unlikely to happen now.

Despite what he is facing, Gustav takes a deep breath and packs as much authority into his stance as he can muster. There are times where he must be worthy of his office and this is one of them. Neighbourhood disputes are all well and good, unavoidable really, but the proportions of this one are starting to worry him. “Nancy. Annie is not responsible for an attack on your garden by wild pokemon.”

That seems to stop her in her tracks. For a golden, glorious moment he almost believes he has gotten through to her.

No such luck.

“Wild pokemon,” Nancy breathes, tone more than merely worrying, “Of course. Wild pokemon. That’s all it is.”

* * *

_#Decidueye Incorporated, certified exterminators, how may we help you?#_

Nancy clutches the receiver of her telephone with a white-knuckled grip, looking fixedly out the window at what used to be her beautiful lawn. “I would like to book one of your workers. My town has a problem… with pests.”


End file.
